The will to survive
by THE ZERO ANGEL
Summary: What would happen if Naruto came back to the village only to find it completely destroyed? This is my first fan fiction and more of a test than an actual story as of now, But anyway,enjoy.


Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto in any way.

The will to survive

What drives a man to continue when he has lost everything? Is it the thin veil around there eyes that

that tells them things will get better? Is it because God's mission for them is not yet completed? Is it

because Satan wants to further torturer them on Earth? Or is it something more. Something deeper. These are the questions that plaque my mind as I walk down this rain soaked street. The memories of my past haunting my mind, forever etched on my brain. I slowly drag my feet without purpose down this rain soaked street. This cursed rain soaked street. I look down at my wristwatch, already knowing it has been some time since its hands have shown life, stopping on the time when my life ended as well. "Two forty seven."I sigh. " My life ended at two forty seven." I look up to the sky and close my eyes, the icy cold rain slamming on my face. I sigh heavily as I pull the coaler of my lavender coat to my neck. I pray that the rain will wash away my sorrow. I pray that the rain washes away my pain.

But I know better than that.

I know better than to think anyone or anything will try to help me. I know better than to think that everything will be OK. That my problems will be solved by rain. That they'll ever be solved. I sigh once more, I seem to do that a lot these days. "God I'm only fifteen." I rise my head and glare at the moon. "To young to lose everything." I continue to drag my feet along with out purpose down this street. This rain soaked street,void of any hope or happiness. 'I wish he was here now. I wounder if he even knows what happened here. Or...maybe he does know... maybe... maybe he doesn't want to come back.' " NO! WHAT ON ERATH DID I JUST SAY!" I look down in shame. 'If he doesn't know he will do everything he can to fix it when he gets back.' I smile as I look up at the moon once more. It some how seems...brighter. 'And if he does know I'm sure he is heading back here at full speed as we speak!' I can feel my smile getting even larger. 'He would never give up on us. He would never turn his back on us and he would give it his all to help us.' My smile enlarges and I can fell my confidence building up in me. 'He never gave up,and he never will, and neither can I. I promised everyone that I would never give up. That I would do what I can to help my village despite...despite...everything that has happened to me, to us.' I look down as I feel a tear about to escape it's prison. I suck it up. ' No. No more tears, I have been training hard since he left, even harder since those past events, and harder still since my own family accidents. If I keep crying all of it will be for nothing. Hmm I guess a another late night training session wouldn't hurt. Yeah that should get the old spirits up!'

(elsewhere, two figurers approach home)

"Two years. Two very loooooooong years since we left our home." I smile up at the man who as trained me so much in the two years we've been gone. "Indeed it has." He grins at me. "I can't wait to see my old friends again! I can only imagine how much more they have grown. I bet they've all gotten crazy strong in my absence." My master chuckles "Well I'm sure they've all gotten stronger but not as strong as you, cause none of them had me to train em!" I put my hands behind my head. " Yeah maybe." My master looks down at me with a look of disbelieve. "What is that supposed to mean! You don't think my training was good enough for ya!" "No it was great and I know I can help a certain someone with my new strength. But I would have liked to get more training instead of you going on your 'late night fun runs'." My master grunts. "I already told you, I go on those 'clears throat' 'late night fun runs' for my work." I smile at him. " Well in any case, I'm glad to be home after all this time. I can't wait to show of all my mad skills to everyone and prove to them that I'm awesome!" My master smiles down at me. I can only imagine what he's thinking. 'Same old knucklehead. Still you can't help but like him.' Just the thought of me being able to read my masters thoughts makes me smile even more.

My master looks up ahead and then at me. "Well, if your done smiling to yourself , I think you well find the sight in front of you to your liking." Without looking I sprint ahead, already knowing what is in front of me. I keep running until I get a strange stinging felling on my face. I take a step back, rub my face, and look in front of me to see two large closed gates. "Strange I do not remember the gates being closed." I think nothing more of it as I jump up and run up the side of the large wall. I reach the top, stand up and shout at the top of my lungs. "HELLOOOOOOOOOO KO-" I stop. Shocked. Completely utterly shocked by what I see. "Wha..." I can fell my heart racing. My eyes and hands start to tremble. "What has happened here? WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO MY HOME?!"

I look around my disheveled home. Tatter, beaten, destroyed. There is hardly anyone on the streets and those that are look morbid, as if any chance at happiness have been completely riped from them. All the homes have been shredded to pieces. The trees are twisted and burned. The scorch marks continue off the trees,and go in and around almost every building. Large sections of the wall around my home have been torn away. Gone as if it where never there to begin with. Sections of the ground have large cracks, some being occupied by buildings and kiosks. I can see far off to my left where there used to be a large lake, is now something horrible. The once shining sparkling water is now a black, hardened tar pit. In it are countless, twisted, mangled, bodies,many with missing limbs. The smell is..the smell is... God I cant even begin to describe the reached,vial,musty aroma. I can see their cold lifeless faces,staring at me as I where to blame.

And some how,I fell that I am to blame.

This is my home, these people, although not though blood, are my family. I should have been here to protect them. I should have been here to prevent whatever it is that happened. I can't help but think on what has happened here, and as my mind continues to ponder, fear, concern, and fury consume my mind and heart. I can feel my nails puncture my skin as I clench my fist tighter. The sound of my grinding teeth could probably be heard all throughout my home. I'm so caught up by what I'm being forced to witness that I do not even realize my master has jumped up next to me until he says. " Dear... God... Wha-wha...what?" My master falls to his left knee and starts to throw up. He tries to stand back up but fails as he falls back to his left knee. I help him stand to his feet and we both take another look at our home. My master looks around at the damage. "I can't even began to imagine the amount of lives that have been lost here. How many people have died." It is then that it hits me like a sword in my heart. That one word floats in my mind and floats in keeps replaying in my head. Death. Death to my friends, death to comrades,death to teachers. All of them, dead. All of them gone. And I could not do anything to help. The pain in my heart is mounting, the guilt,shame and sorrow is unbearable and building up. It starts to have a physical effect on me as I now feel my entire body tremble. " No." My master looks up at me. " No. This can't be happening!" I can no longer take this torment as I jump off the wall and hit the street. I start to run looking for someone. Any one that looks familiar to me, praying that my friends are still alive. I do not care where I run, I just do.

(On the other side of the village, a few people are walking when...)

I come to a sudden stop. My friends around me stop and look at me, a male speaks up. "What is it?" I close my eyes, look up and inhale deeply before I speak. " Their here." I can feel everyones eyes get larger as they stare at me. A female speaks this time. "Are...are you s-sure its them?" I look at the green eyed girl and smile. "Positive. I never forget the scent of a comrade." The girl leans in closer to me. "Well? Are you going to keep us hanging here?! Come on, lets go to him!" I run ahead of the other three to take us to him. " Come on, he's this way." The sound of several feet is all I hear as I run to my target. 'Well better late than never I guess'

(Elsewhere, he continues to run in his desperate quest to find those that are sacred to him.)

"No no no no no no no NO! Oh God no no no no no." I fall to the my knees with my hands following suit. I can feel the flood gates open as I smash the ground. "Oh god no,oh god no,oh god no,oh god,oh god." I can no longer take this Hell, and I just keep crying for what feels like an eternity. "I can't believe this has happened. I can't...I can't...oh god there all dead there all dead because of me. If I had been here I could have saved them, I could have done something to save them, to protect them, oh god. And now they are all dead!" I feel my sanity slowly sleep away from me, when I fell a gentle hand on my shoulder. I look up with a speed I did not know I had, to find a sight that brought tears of happiness and sorrow. For right in front of me is someone I never thought I would see once more.

She had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. Such a bright and memorizing green eyes. Eyes that I have missed for so long that they can be considered as emeralds. Her skin looks and feels like the softest cloud. A creamy white color that looks like ice cream, and probably tastes like it to. Her nose is just the right size, not a large honker and not a pea size nose, just the right size's for maximum cuteness. Her hair had grown back and reached just below her shoulders, and it still remained the color of cheery blossoms. Everything was exactly the way I left it. Except for one thing that captured my eye the second I saw her, and even as I tried to look at the rest of her face. On the left side of her face she bore a large scare. It started from the top of her left ear and continued down the side of her face, cut through both of her lips and stopped at the bottom of the right side of her chin. It was a bright red color with a dark brown outline.

" What happened to your face? What happened to the others? What happened to the village? Is everyone OK, Where is every one? Oh god what happened here?!" I stare into her eyes and she stares into mine. I look down at the ground trying to hold back tears. Fearing, what I might see or hear. I can feel her squeezing my shoulder and I look back at her face. What I find takes me by complete surprise, like a sword in my gut while I sleep. For there on here face was a small smile, just a slight smirk. I desperately wanted to take comfort in her smile, but I just could not find anything to smile about considering the gravity of this situation. I look at her sternly. " Wh-why are you smiling? What is there to smirk at? Where is everyone and are they okay?" She looks at me and says. "Everyone is okay...well in our age group anyway. Don't worry." I can feel my face light up,I can barely contain myself. " Oh God thats a relieve. Whe-where are they?" She giggled a little, which I also found kind of strange. She stopped giggling and spoke "Well most of them...are behind you." That exact second she finished that sentence I jump up and turn around in one swift, quick motion. And there they where all of them I took a few split seconds to examine them all. I was right, they all looked like they grow in power. I started with the one on the left.

She was a tall blond with sapphire blue eyes. Her hair was in a long ponytail and in the front she had a bang that covered the right side completely form her forehead to her chin. As I continued inspecting her face, I saw that her right ear was severely burned. I started to wounder if the rest of the right side of her face was like that. She was waring a baggy yellow shirt. It fell just a few inches above her navel. Her right sleeve reached her wrist while the left one stopped shy of her elbow. She had two gold armbands around her wrist and below her elbow with a yellow piece of cloth that was connected to both armbands. Her dark blue pants followed suit as the right leg went above her ankle and the left just above her knee. She also had a light yellow skirt with an orange trim over the pants. The skirt came to a halt a few inches above her left pants leg and had 4 inch slits in the front,back and sides. She had dark blue high heeled sandals.

Behind her on her left, which is my right, I see a guy this time. He was a tall, about my hight, with wild black hair. He to had a new accessory on his face. A large scare on his face that started at the top of his head, went past the his left eye and stopped at the bottom of his chin passing his already marked cheek. Luckily there was no damage to his eye but it to had a strange color to it. The scare was wide and had a extremely bright shade of white with a dark black outline. His body was muscularly toned but not bulging large, for I could see them past his tight blue long sleeve shirt. His nails where long but filed to be sharp. He had on a pair of black and incredibly baggy black pants. It was covered in large pockets on the front and the sides. Some where sagging indicating there was something occupying them. He also had one more new item, fortunately it was not a scare. Instead, it was a strange, yet...mesmerizing necklace. It had a silver rope, in the front there was a large diamond with a bright red ruby on the inside of the diamond. How it got in there is a complete mystery to me. But what was an even bigger mystery was........HOW ON EARTH DID HE AFORED A ROCK THAT HUGE!!!? I tried to come up with an explanation and the only thing that would make sense is that it was a gift for him. Satisfied with my conclusion I moved on to the next person in front of him on his left.

This guy was a behemoth, he was very large and had more muscles than a body to put them all on. Literally every square inch of this guy had riped,hard core muscles. Pushing his skin beyond the limit trying to hold back the beastly muscles. His face was very serious despite seeing me. I started to fear that I might be the source of his anger, and that I was going to pay a price. He once smiled a lot, but looking at his face now, I could not tell. He had on a tattered sleeveless vest with a tight red short sleeve shirt underneath. He had tight black pants that pasted his ankles, or at least I think they did. I could not see past his orange leg warmers. He had on a weird pair of gloves on. They where bright red like his shirt with a metal plate in between the knuckles and wrist, and they only covered half way up to his fingers. But connected to the glove was a long brown rectangular object on the top of his arms. It stopped about a middle fingers length away from his elbows and had a thin whole in the front that went from one side to the other. He a white chain around his neck with a gold medallion and engraved on it in bold red lettering read "HOPE". I go back to his face, he still had a strange hair style but now it got crazier. It was a blinding orange color,but the strange thing was...it looked...natural...like it always looked like that.

I could not understand why his hair looked like that, or the scare on the others or the burn on the blonds ear. But I was more than glad to see them despite the guilt I still felt. I'm at an complete lose for words when the orange haired one spoke a single word. "Yo" That completely breaks me out of my trance. I leap out at them, surprising them all with a bare hug. They all start to hug me back as the pink haired one joins in. I can feel myself getting ready to cry but I do not hold back. " Oh thank god you are all okay I...I taught I would never see you guys again." I let go, back up and I take a look around, my smile fading."But where are the others? Are they..." The blond puts her hand on my forearm. "Don't worry. There all fi...there all alive." I sigh deeply but I'm still missing things. "What on earth happened here? Why is this whole place destroyed? How did this happen?" All of their faces are meet with sadness, then the pink haired one stepped froward. " I think you should have a talk with him." "Him? Him who?" She turned around and pointed to a large red and white mansion, one I know all to well. "Oh you mean the Hok..." I stop and look at her. " What do you mean...him?" " Come on, he well explain it all to you and he should know that you are here." I nod and take off running toward the mansion. Before I reach it I see one more thing that startles me. The mountain, the last thing I saw before I left, the one I looked trowed every day, the one I wanted to add my face to as well, was almost completely destroyed. The first face was completely smashed in, the seconded had large sections missing, the third had scratches all over,and the fifth looked as if some one tried to rip it down with hooks and rope, for they where still there. The forth, however, was the only one that survived. Saddened and angered I try to look away. " Someone going to give me some answer. I kick down the front door, run up the stairs ,go down the corridors and come to the familiar door. I take several deep breaths to calm myself and allow the others to catch up to me. I hear several set of feet quickly coming toward me. They come to a stop behind me and I knock gently on the door. From the inside I hear Two words "Come in." I grab the handle and twist it.


End file.
